


you can think that you're in love (when you're really just in pain)

by iPhone



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Chloe is engaged to Chicago, F/F, Pining, Romance, pp3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25111861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iPhone/pseuds/iPhone
Summary: After the boat explodes, Beca is nowhere to be found. Chloe spends the next year missing her. Life has other plans.
Relationships: Chloe Beale & Beca Mitchell, Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell, Chloe Beale/Chicago Walp
Comments: 28
Kudos: 209





	you can think that you're in love (when you're really just in pain)

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous dropped this pseudo prompt in my ask box and it got away from me: "Imagine a scenario where Beca never emerged from the water after the explosion, and Chloe was eventually brought to land. She stood on the harbour all night and all morning as search and rescue tried to locate her but they never found her. Chloe eventually moved on with Chicago at the urging of her friends and on the day of her wedding, Beca reappears. She was discovered washed up on a nearby shore with amnesia and was nursed back to health. Eventually finding her way back to Chloe."
> 
> Title from "Moral of the Story" by Ashe and Niall Horan.

"Chloe, you can’t stay out here all night.”

It is Chicago’s voice, soft and urgent, that lulls Chloe back into the present moment. Amidst the ringing in her ears, a product of being in such close proximity to an exploding boat. With disappointment, she scans the rippling water—water far too gentle for the turmoil she feels within her own body—to no avail. 

Still no sign of Beca.

At this point, she feels increasingly helpless and even more poignant, she feels hopeless—a sentiment she never thought she’d feel when it came to Beca Mitchell. It’s just hard to really feel anything else at the moment because Beca isn’t standing there by her side.

Things had been frantic and unclear when they landed in the water. Chloe’s throat is still sore from both the copious amounts of water she swallowed and how loudly she had screamed for Beca, disoriented by the cold water and the darkness around them. She had felt various pairs of hands on her shoulders and arms—other Bellas to be sure—but she hadn’t felt _Beca_. And when they all had been pulled ashore eventually, first onto a rescue boat, then to blessed, solid land, Chloe had finally come to the conclusion that they had left Beca behind.

“We didn’t find her,” the search and rescue operations had told them. “We couldn’t find her—we’ll search again in the morning.”

Chloe couldn’t wait for morning.

“Chloe,” Chicago says again.

“We left her behind,” Chloe whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

“It’s...” Chicago hesitates when Chloe’s eyes cut to his with warning flaring up in them. “It’s just cold...and dark out there,” he tries. “It’s probably...”

“Stop,” Chloe whispers with a waver in her voice. “She’ll come. She has to.”

* * * * *

(More vivid than ever, a memory floats to the forefront of Chloe’s mind—Beca tentatively rounding the corner, hesitant and wary, showing up late to an acapella try-out. And all Chloe recalls is how relieved she had felt. How comforted.

How _happy_ because Beca had made it. Beca had made it and Chloe was happy.)

* * * * *

She doesn’t make it. She doesn't come. She doesn't wash ashore in some grand scene. Chloe doesn't sweep Beca into her arms and kiss her until the morning comes.

It's just...nothing.

* * * * *

It is incredible to Chloe how it only takes a few days to declare somebody missing when that person has a vibrant two—almost three—decades of life behind them. Life that Chloe was only so fortunate to share in for a brief period. Too short a period.

It is incredible how the words “legally missing” mean nothing and everything at the same time.

* * *

“Are you going to stay out here all night?” 

Aubrey’s voice, soft and sincere, cuts through Chloe’s thoughts.

“What’s that?” Chloe murmurs, shaking some of the faint rushing from her head. It reminds her of waves gently rolling against an empty shore bringing her nothing but dashed dreams and disappointments.

"I asked if you're going to stay out here all night," Aubrey prompts again. 

A part of Chloe wishes she could. It had felt remarkably draining to have to smile and accept congratulatory hugs from people she barely knew. Then to receive sympathetic looks from people she considered closer friends. “I’ll have to go back in soon. I mean—I should, shouldn’t I?” she murmurs, mostly asking herself at this point. She's sure Aubrey will respond regardless.

“It is your engagement party,” Aubrey points out, surprisingly delicate. “Chloe, I...” She doesn’t finish her thoughts, another surprising moment for Aubrey, but Chloe appreciates the brief reprieve from questioning and inquiry.

Chloe sighs, lifting her left hand from the balcony railing to look at the ring adorning her finger. 

“Do you think...” Chloe swallows, unsure what she even wants to ask. 

_Do you think she’s out there still?_

_Do you think he’s right for me?_

_Do you think I’ll ever move on from loving her?_

She has asked herself and others variations of these questions over the past year. One year of not having Beca Mitchell in her life. One year of not knowing whether Beca is even dead or alive. One year of constantly feeling relief and dread all at once with each passing day of the coast guard notifying them that they have yet to find Beca or, worse, her lifeless body.

One year of all the love for Beca welling up inside herself and nowhere to put it. 

Chicago had seemed like a safe option. An option _so_ safe that the result of her decision rests heavy on her finger, sparkling back at her like it dares to wink.

“You know it’s never too late, right, Chloe?”

“To do what?”

“To...to not marry him.”

It makes Chloe take pause as she contemplates Aubrey’s words. It’s true that she could just choose not marry Chicago, but he does, for all intents and purposes, make her happy. He makes her feel safe and cherished. 

He loves her.

That fact is particularly important because if she’s being honest with herself, for as much as she remains distraught and hung up on Beca, she hadn’t truly _known_ if Beca had loved her in return. Not in the way that Chloe had wanted all these years, at least.

(It seems almost like a cheap shot at Beca’s memory, however, because of course Beca had loved her. And Chloe had let herself fall deeper for Beca even though things remained unspoken between them. Beca had never been good with words, but Chloe had been one of the few people that had been privy to being let in by Beca herself. Privy to understanding Beca and everything she stood for. The things she didn’t say.)

“I love him,” Chloe finally responds, ignoring the way her voice wavers. “And he loves me. And we’re getting married because of that and nothing else.” 

Aubrey says nothing. Instead, she pulls Chloe in for a hug, a long, comfortable hug, and lets Chloe cry on her shoulder.

* * * * *

Life has a weird way of somehow working out and yet completely throwing Chloe into a tailspin all at the same time. She is roused from sleep less than a week after her engagement party. She sighs, noting the empty space on the bed next to her. Chicago had left just the day before and she already misses the comforting sensation of feeling less alone upon waking up.

However, this morning she realizes belatedly that she has been roused from sleep due to the obnoxious buzzing of her phone on her bedside. She peers at the screen noting the unfamiliar number before she decides to let it go to voicemail, opting for more sleep instead.

She regrets that decision much later.

* * * * *

_Chloe Beale? This is Dr. Carter from Mount Sinai in Manhattan. This might come as a shock to you but we have recently been working with authorities as a patient has come into our care and you were listed as one of the main contacts for her. We have a Beca Mitchell being attended to at this moment, having just been brought over from Europe where she had sustained a fairly serious head injury about a year ago. We can’t get into more details at the moment and we would appreciate it if you could make your way to New York as soon as possible. We are also reaching out to other contacts to make sure—_

Chloe hits the replay button with a trembling finger.

_Chloe Beale? This is Dr. Carter—_

She can’t believe what she’s hearing.

 _—patient has come into our care_ —

It feels like a dream and a nightmare all rolled into one. She feels sick, she feels nauseous, she feels—

_—have a Beca Mitchell being attended to at—_

She collapses onto her bed, staring in shock at her phone, now loosely grasped in her hand. The faint echo of the voicemail calls out to her, but she can barely force herself to move. To function. To breathe.

When she finally comes to her senses, Chloe takes a gasping breath, clasping a hand over her mouth to stop the sob that threatens to escape.

“Beca,” she whispers, testing the name aloud on her lips for the first time in a long time. 

Beca is _home_.

* * *

“Miss, are you going to go in?”

Chloe lifts her head from where she had been watching her foot scuff the floor of the bright hospital tile. She feels exhausted and drained already, mostly from the flight from California to New York, where she had spent most of it on the verge of throwing up and also on the verge of crying. She hadn’t expected this—had dreamed of it—to fall into her lap. She hadn’t prepared. She hadn’t even given herself a chance to decide what she wanted to say to Beca.

“I—” Chloe takes in the sympathetic expression on the nurse’s face. Like the nurse understands the turmoil she is going through at this moment. She fiddles with the ring on her finger, her hand jammed into the pocket of her sweater. “I should just...” she clears her throat. She knows she can’t wait outside forever. 

She never wants Beca to be waiting for her.

“Can I?” she asks timidly, placing a hand on the door.

“You can. I’ll just take the paperwork,” the nurse says kindly. He gently takes the paperwork Chloe had filled out while waiting and guides her with a hand outstretched towards the room, gesturing at her to go in. “She was asking for you, you know?”

At that, Chloe feels unmistakable tears well up in her eyes and she twists before he can see anything else on her face. To twist however, is to enter the room completely where she comes face-to-face with Beca Mitchell for the first time in a year. She couldn’t stop the gasping breath that escapes her even if she had foresight to do so. Beca looks up, startled, looking paler and thinner than Chloe remembers, but very much alive.

“Chloe,” Beca rasps. She clears her throat, a hint of colour returning to her cheeks. “Chloe,” she tries again, clearer than before. “You’re here,” she says, awe tainting her voice.

Chloe breaks, rushing towards the bed into Beca’s outstretched arms, nestling herself in the feeling of _home._

She feels nothing except the warmth of Beca’s body against her. Nothing except of how tightly Beca’s hands tangle into her hair, holding her close. Nothing, not even the press of the cool metal band around her finger.

Just Beca, in her arms, like she had dreamt of all this time.


End file.
